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Your Favorite CFB Announcers, or Announcing Team

Augustus

By Augustus
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Augustus

Augustus 3061

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I can't remember if we did one of these before, though it wouldn't surprise me if we had and if I'd been the one to start it, because it's a topic I enjoy.  But no harm doing it again, if so.

I'm curious to know who you guys most enjoy calling college football games on TV, and why.  It's gotta be a tough job, because most announcers seem to be pretty hated, and catch a ton of grief from fans on message boards and twitter.  Even those not named Beth Mowins. Just think about your reaction when you learn Tim Brando is calling your game.

I don't really have a favorite these days, though I think that Todd Blackledge is outstanding as a color guy:  smart guy, thoughtful and informative, completely objective and never controversial in any way.  Just a classy guy and he's enjoyable to listen to.  If you made me choose, I'd probably go with Sean McDonough as the pbp guy, though I do enjoy Gus Johnson's energy.  Gus is pretty polarizing it seems, you love him or hate him.

But as for my all-time favorite announcing team, hands down:

Ron Franklin on play-by-play, with Mike Gottfried as analyst.  If you're around my age (54), these two were your Thursday night ESPN football voices for a long time, and they're the voices associated with a lot of my great football memories. 

Franklin was really gifted with his distinctive voice, and he was about as professional as it gets calling a game.  Extremely talented and really smooth, he described the action effortlessly and you could tell he enjoyed his job.  He chuckled quite a bit and you laughed with him.  If I was gonna train someone to call a game, I'd have him listen to Ron.

Gottfried probably isn't the best color guy that ever was, but he was a great fit with Franklin.  An old coach, he had a bit of a dry sense of humor, a little sarcastic at times in a way that was funny, not smart ass.  Like Franklin, he made watching the game enjoyable.  

I definitely expect to see Keith Jackson mentioned, and certainly wouldn't argue, he's on his own Mount Rushmore of announcers, but Ron and Mike were my faves.  Who are yours?

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Zone Read

Zone Read 299

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Gus and Joel are the current best.  Almost now makes me feel bad for the nasty hit he took in the 2005 conference championship game against us.  

Keith Jackson, even in his last year with his skills fading, was still in a league by himself.  I was at the 2006 NC game so I didn't get to hear him call it live, but even watching the replay a few days later when I got back and knowing how it was going to end, that 4th and 5 call was still amazing.

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shadow_operative

shadow_operative 15932

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i miss ron franklin. 

speaking of which, how spoiled have we been? we had franklin, schoening, and way; then we had schoening, way, and wallace; and ever since that ended we've had Craig Way doing pxp for innumerable epic moments in all three of the big sports. i'm sorry, but nobody comes close to the talent that Texas football has had calling games for the last 40+ years. 

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orangecat92

orangecat92 306

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 Back in the day I really enjoyed Frank Broyles with Keith Jackson, especially the Texas-OU games.  Frank's accent was so bad, it was memorable, but he really knew his Xs and Os.  Oh boy, I can still hear Frank talking about Brad Shearer, he pronounced it Shearuh.."Keith, that Brad Shearuh is so quick Oklahoma had to throw out some of the plays in the playbook this week...they simply cannot block him"......Frank benefited from following Bud Wilkinson who was so boring he probably put all of Oklahoma to sleep when he commented on games. 

Move up to a more modern era and Ron Franklin on ESPN was the best Play-by-play man. "Count it off at 10, 15 yards for....."   

Never mind the era, the fact that Keith seemed to make every broadcast partner better may have been his most important feature.   Even in the end when he had obviously lost his stuff, Keith had a hunch Vince would put the team on his back and will the team to victory.  Of course we all felt like that was the only way to win, but Keith really believed it as well.  

Gus Johnson does as good a job as any on play-by-play now.  Are there any decent analysts?  

The pros had the funniest, the back and forth between Dandy Don and Howard.  "This is Howad Cosell...What you have seen tonight is a man take complete, total control of the game, and these fans, these fans all finally have something to cheer about".    That was about Earl, the night Earl rushed for 199 yards 4 TDs against the Dolphins and was so tired in the end zone at the end of his 81 yard TD his teammates had to help him to the sidelines. 

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I get Keith Jackson in the totality of his career, but with regard to the 2006 Rose Bowl, he was basically openly rooting for USC.  That's a terrible fucking example of his greatness.

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GTX Horn

GTX Horn 1707

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Klatt is by far the best analyst of the current group. Excellent insight and he’s pretty fair and balanced. He’s one of the few who doesn’t constantly suck off the SEC and really has been quite generous towards us in the past as well even though he’s had plenty of opportunities to kick us while we’re down.

As far as play by play, Gus’s energy is great, but I also really enjoy listening to Brad Nessler. Fowler sucks. 

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SwanderedTalent

SwanderedTalent 5761

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Klatt is currently the best analyst. I thought Chris Spielman was extremely good at the same kind of analysis-- things like an OL tipping a play with his feet, or the why of when a specific approach is or isn't working. Any idiot can watch a team complete a dozen crossing patterns in a row and say "Ohio State continues to work the crossing patterns, Michigan has to do a better job of stopping them!" It takes a competent analyst to explain that, because Michigan is NOT telling its DBs "just run behind the receiver and let him catch the ball and then chase him til he gets tired", something they ARE telling them isn't working, and WHY it isn't working. What is it, and why is it. Klatt and Spielman are about the only two I can recall saying anything in the booth that a coaching staff would be interested in hearing. 

Herbstreit is probably the worst. He is one hundred percent, literally one hundred percent, jargon without analysis. High-pointing the ball, athletes in space, hog mollies dominating on the offensive line, big hole in the A-gap, 11 personnel, it's entirely jargon to cover up the lack of insight. Which makes sense; Herbstreit played in a prehistoric Ohio State offense and took his last snap almost thirty years ago. His experience as a player doesn't shed any light on why 2021 football tactics work or don't work beyond the most basic stuff a la "that was a good block" and I guess he doesn't really work at learning it well enough to explain it.

Gary Danielson is a fucking clown and almost unlistenable if the game affects the SEC's post-season outlook, because whatever the fuck it is, he will find a way to try to rhetorically turn it to the conference's advantage. It's rare to see a football play with perfect blocking, a perfect read by the QB, and a perfect throw to a receiver who ran a perfect route only to have it broken up by the perfect defensive technique of the DB, unless you're watching an SEC game on CBS and Danielson is on the call. The SEC is just that good, you see. 

Edited by SwanderedTalent
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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9112

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4 hours ago, slorch said:

I get Keith Jackson in the totality of his career, but with regard to the 2006 Rose Bowl, he was basically openly rooting for USC.  That's a terrible fucking example of his greatness.

There’s a notable example of this late in the game, we have the ball, Vince is kicking ass, and Jackson bellows...

“What do you do now...”

Fouts, thinking (as any reasonable analyst would, because Texas had the ball) Jackson was asking how the Longhorns would attack the defense, started talking about the possible UT options.

And Keith then finishes his thought:

”...how do you stop him?” 

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SwanderedTalent

SwanderedTalent 5761

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This could cross post on the Unpopular Opinions thread, but I'm one of three people on the Internet who loved Brent Musberger. Loved loved loved him. He called some of the biggest games I watched growing up and I always liked the way he set the stage for things. He never sounded bored setting up games that were likely blowouts so his energy when those games turned out to be huge thrilling upsets didn't feel faked. E.g., the 1996 Big 12 Championship Game. I get he's not most people's cup of tea. And that he's retired.

Jackson was obviously in a league of his own.

Nessler to me was way better 15 years ago. I think Sean McDonough has surpassed him. 

Fowler is the fucking worst. He sounds like an announcer in a football movie, like he's scripted and played by someone who knows football announcing by watching tapes of announcers, not growing up with the sport. 

Of all time, I agree w Augustus that Franklin and Gottfried were special. 

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52 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

This could cross post on the Unpopular Opinions thread, but I'm one of three people on the Internet who loved Brent Musberger. Loved loved loved him. He called some of the biggest games I watched growing up and I always liked the way he set the stage for things. He never sounded bored setting up games that were likely blowouts so his energy when those games turned out to be huge thrilling upsets didn't feel faked. E.g., the 1996 Big 12 Championship Game. I get he's not most people's cup of tea. And that he's retired.

Jackson was obviously in a league of his own.

Nessler to me was way better 15 years ago. I think Sean McDonough has surpassed him. 

Fowler is the fucking worst. He sounds like an announcer in a football movie, like he's scripted and played by someone who knows football announcing by watching tapes of announcers, not growing up with the sport. 

Of all time, I agree w Augustus that Franklin and Gottfried were special. 

I liked Brent as a studio host( NFL Today?)

Couldn’t stand him on the call of a college game.

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Macanudo

Macanudo 12928

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6 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I swear there was a post on TexAgs that got reposted at hornfans.com, where some Aggie said "they're on the 9 yard line and Young has 191 yards rushing, I don't like the looks of this"

When we got the ball back after the 4th down stop, I remember thinking "Well, here we go....  The supposedly greatest football team EVAR is going to get beat by the best football team ever."

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28713

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33 minutes ago, Augustus said:

I'd actually forgotten, for the moment anyway, about Spielman doing color.  He is fantastic.

I really miss him doing college games. I wish I could see the game the way he does. He sees it the way a chess master sees a chess board. He knows what all 22 players are doing on every play and doesn’t have to wait for the replay to tell you exactly what happened.

I also miss his radio show Spielman on Sports. 

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ousux

ousux 5587

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As great as that call was, Craig's radio version was better....    "All the dreams, all the hopes..."  His call starts at the 28 second mark.   
 
 
 
 
 
I disagree, and no disrespect to Craig. Maybe it's Keith Jackon's iconic voice...but it was done perfectly. "He's going for the cornerrrrr....*silence for a moment to hear the crowd roar and take it all in*....Vince Young has done it!"

Craigs version is great, no doubt...but he sounds like the homer he is. That sort of thing wouldnt play well to the entire country watching the game.
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shadow_operative

shadow_operative 15932

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8 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

This could cross post on the Unpopular Opinions thread, but I'm one of three people on the Internet who loved Brent Musberger. Loved loved loved him. He called some of the biggest games I watched growing up and I always liked the way he set the stage for things. He never sounded bored setting up games that were likely blowouts so his energy when those games turned out to be huge thrilling upsets didn't feel faked. E.g., the 1996 Big 12 Championship Game. I get he's not most people's cup of tea. And that he's retired.

Jackson was obviously in a league of his own.

Nessler to me was way better 15 years ago. I think Sean McDonough has surpassed him. 

Fowler is the fucking worst. He sounds like an announcer in a football movie, like he's scripted and played by someone who knows football announcing by watching tapes of announcers, not growing up with the sport. 

Of all time, I agree w Augustus that Franklin and Gottfried were special. 

a)i love Musberger as well. his call of Ricky's Run >>> Schoening's. and b)Musberger and my dad looked fairly similar back in the 80's, and my mom tells the story of me as a toddler seeing Musberger calling a Texas game on TV and pointing and saying, "daddy!". i still like to give my dad shit from time to time and tell him that Musberger is my real dad. 

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7KHorn

7KHorn 2613

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51 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

a)i love Musberger as well. his call of Ricky's Run >>> Schoening's. and b)Musberger and my dad looked fairly similar back in the 80's, and my mom tells the story of me as a toddler seeing Musberger calling a Texas game on TV and pointing and saying, "daddy!". i still like to give my dad shit from time to time and tell him that Musberger is my real dad. 

I'm also a Musberger fan; his 4th and inches Roll Left call for 96 Big 12 championship was well done.  

https://youtu.be/igWLuCfPnc4

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28713

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I was a fan of Brent Musburger. (Get the spelling right, people.) I basically watched his whole career. “You are looking live” is an iconic introduction. And it was great that he was a gambler, always knew the betting lines, and you could tell when he had money on a game. There was a game where Ohio State played Northwestern, his alma mater, and of course OSU won the game but Northwestern turned the ball over in the final seconds and gave up a TD leading to a backdoor cover by the Buckeyes and you could hear the pain in his voice. There’s not a chance in the world that he didn’t have money on his Wildcats. He even commented during the broadcast about how a lot of people were really sad to see that happen. 

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28713

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Another thing about broadcasters and Musburger in particular. What makes a good announcer is their body of work, not just that they were on the call during your favorite team’s big win. The announcer’s job isn’t to root for your team. It’s to explain and to keep the more casual fans engaged and to convey the emotion of the game. I used to get into arguments with other Buckeye “fans” (I don’t consider myself to be a Buckeye fan...I’m just a Buckeye) who thought Musburger hated the Buckeyes because he would express emotion when an opposing team, especially Michigan, had success against OSU. No, you dumbasses, he’s just doing his job.

And then at Purdue in 2002 Musburger made the “Holy Buckeye!” call when Craig Krenzel threw a TD to Michael Jenkins on 4th and 1 and kept their national championship hopes alive and I never heard any of those arguments again. But they were always stupid and wrong.

 

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